


Analytical Approach

by cyrusbarrone



Series: Recovery [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky's Recovery, Gen, Recovery focus, post winter soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 16:49:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4312794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyrusbarrone/pseuds/cyrusbarrone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He is happy that the Optician calls him James and not 'Bucky' like Rogers (target 0135) insisted on doing, for the Captain seemed to find comfort in grasping on straws that The Soldier still was Bucky beneath all the blood on his hands and shit in his brain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Analytical Approach

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of the second part to my fic called Live Wires, however it does not have to be read to understand this fic ^^

The Soldier could barely focus on the task at hand, and that troubled him. It meant that his programming was slipping which would mean HYDRA having to fix it, and he understood that that meant clamps of electricity around his skull. The task was a simple one which tested his eye sight. He had to read letters which got smaller as they got further down the page, but The Soldier could not focus. His focus had been dwindling for weeks since The Weapon had been messed with, leaving him with headaches and burning over his shoulders. 

There was little threat in the room. There was a woman in the room with him who was around thirty years old and had, he assumed, minimal self defense training that all workers got upon their induction. If he felt the need to leave, the impulse to escape the room, she would be easy to take out with his far superior training. There was also a window and a door. The escape routes from there would be fairly simple, he had deducted upon being led to this room. The window was likely reinforced and wired into an alarm system, so would be best to avoid, but if worse came to worse then he would risk escaping through the window. The door was easier to access- there was no alarm system connected and no lock for easy escape in the event of a fire, which would only help The Soldier if he felt threatened.

"James, what are the letters?" prompts the Optician, giving him a careful look over the top of her own pair of spectacles. She doesn't remind him of the HYDRA scientists much. The only thing similar was that expression of fascination she wore, looking at him as though he were a specimen in a dish, collected for analyzing. Even then, though, she lacked the fascination of Creator towards Monster that the HYDRA scientists all held towards him. 

The Soldier blinks and turns his head. He stops his staring at the door- he had spent the previous five minutes trying to figure out the amount of guards outside the door and the weapons that they may have with them. He theorized that the issued weapon for somebody on guard duty would be a Glock 22 and that they might have other concealed weapons in possession, also.-The Soldier looks at the letters. He barely remembers why she calls him 'James' and not 'Asset' until he sees the tiny SHIELD logo on the screen of letters. He remembers being dragged into possession of SHIELD, a toy stolen from one power hungry baby by another. Still, he is happy that she called him James and not 'Bucky' like Rogers (target 0135) insisted on doing, for the Captain seemed to find comfort in grasping on straws that The Soldier still was Bucky beneath all the blood on his hands and shit in his brain.

The Soldier begins to recite the letters with a comforted ease, getting out if his distraction, happy to do as the lady wishes now that he knew he wasn’t going to be punished for any mistakes. Still, he thinks it is a silly test to make him do considering they know he can kill a man from hundreds of feet away in relative darkness. He wonders if that even occurred to SHIELD or if this was just another test they could collect data from, because he’d seen the documents they had on him, files upon files of information and statistics in the same manner that HYDRA had had. The constant running of statistics and data was part of what made him not trust SHIELD, because as much as SHIELD tried to act differently, they were alike HYDRA in ways people wouldn’t realize unless they’d been held under both agencies’ ‘care’. 

"Good," the blonde praised, and smiled at him in a friendly manner. He supposed she wanted to encourage his co-operation. The Soldier thinks that if he were still Bucky Barnes he would be happy to get a girl like her smiling- for she was pretty, he guessed- and would try to charm her with his words. He thinks that perhaps if he were Bucky Barnes, and not this man who feels more of a shell, she would flirt back because when Captain Rogers talked about the good old days he always spoke of Bucky Barnes as a hit with the ladies. 

But he is not Bucky Barnes, he is The Winter Soldier. He is a man who has lived far too long and has little to show for it bar the blood of many on his hands. He is a man who is empty of everything apart from stats and an analytical view on the world and The Soldier wonders if that will ever change- if he will ever walk into a room and not wonder how easy it will be to get back out, if he will look at people as more than potential collateral damage. And most of all he wonders if he will ever be able to feel emotion again, instead of the never-ending nothingness; will he ever be able to return the Captain's badly hidden love and affection? Or will he always just be… this. This carcass of the great war hero Bucky Barnes, living in the shadow of a man long dead.

He is The Winter Soldier of that he is certain. Though he feels less like The Soldier as the days go on; a month ago Stark worked on The Weapon. He bowed over it with a welder and declared it unhealthy and said it was killing him (but wouldn’t it have been better if it had?). The Soldier had been reluctant to let it go, though, for he would be weak and useless without it, but Rogers had sat him down and said it had to go, that he'd be better without such a blatant link to HYDRA. He didn't think he had much choice then, and went into surgery fearful that it was all a hoax. That this bright and loud world he had been dragged into was all an elaborate dream and he would wake up frosty in a cryogenic tank, ready to be wiped.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! please tell me what you think in the comments below c:
> 
> also talk to me on my tumblr if you want: freddeebaxter.tumblr.com (:


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